24 Hours
by r4ven3
Summary: Set from late in 10.06. What if Dimitri had gone outside the bunker 30 seconds earlier? How would this have affected the outcome of 10.06?
1. Chapter 1

Her eyes open to unfamiliar surroundings – the smells, the sounds, the feel of this bed is different. It feels softer, somehow more inviting, like warm arms surrounding her and bringing her home. The first thing she notices is that her arm aches. The second thing is the regular breathing of someone lying next to her.

Then she remembers, and she smiles in the dark. Her left forearm is wrapped in a firm bandage, and so she holds it across her abdomen as she slowly turns to see him spread out on his stomach on his side of the bed, his face turned away from her, his hair mussed, the duvet not quite covering his bum. She reaches out to touch him, but quickly pulls her hand back. As much as she longs to touch his skin, to caress his broad back, and to kiss his very kissable butt-cheeks, she leaves him to enjoy his sleep. The last few days have been stressful for them both, but none so much as he; he deserves to be left to rest undisturbed. She knows how exhausted he is. Very carefully she lifts the duvet and pulls it up to cover him to his shoulders. He sleeps on, his body rising and falling slowly with each breath he takes. Even though he cannot see her, him being deep in the land inhabited by dreams, she blows him a kiss anyway. She wishes for his dreams to be light and peaceful, and for him still to love her, and to remember how much she loves him when he awakes.

She lays back on the pillow on her side of the bed, holding to her the memory she has of the previous night. The whole series of events was unexpected, from the stabbing, to she and Harry ending up back here at his house. Then there was the love-making, and what love-making it was too. He'd been tender as he'd looked after her, fed her, fussed over her injury like a worried mother, but then when she'd reached up to kiss him, everything had changed. All the tension, the build-up of emotion and longing for each other had burst its banks, flooding them with passion and a drive and a knowing that this was their moment. A doorway had opened for them, and they had walked through it. Had they let that moment pass them by, who knows how long it would have been before they were granted another such opportunity?

.

Harry had asked for her to be with him during the tense time when they were working on averting a major air crash over London, having earlier been plucked from the Americans by his loyal team. His words, "I want you in here with me," seemed natural somehow. Even though she worked for Towers, Harry's need for her advice and her intelligence – her support - overrode any other obligations she had towards others, as it so often had. To have refused him would have been unthinkable. What she'd discovered about Harry while they were in that bunker with Elena Gavrik and her husband and son had cemented Ruth's regard in relation to Harry. She discovered that he was not only a brave man – at times foolishly so – but he was honourable and loyal, even when he did not benefit from his own loyalty, and such loyalty was so often betrayed, as it ultimately had been with Elena.

As she left the bunker to look outside for Harry, she knew she needed to act differently, with the intention of forever turning around their pattern of destroying the very thing they both wanted to build together. When she reached him, she asked him to leave the service with her and share her life. It had been so simple. There they'd stood, holding hands, looking at one another, with so much passing between them which was beyond words. He hadn't dropped her hand or stepped way. He'd grasped her fingers in his and leaned towards her, nodding his assent, a smile beginning to soften his tired features. It was then that she noticed his eyes distracted by something behind her.

When she'd turned to see Sasha Gavrik approaching, intent on doing Harry harm, she did what came naturally to her. She stood between Sasha and Harry. She didn't hear him telling her to go inside, so intent was she on protecting him. It was when Sasha was close enough to her for her to see the colour of his eyes – clear pale blue – that the shot rang out. The crack from that shot seemed to have come from all around them. What happened next was so sudden, so confounding that Ruth had failed to understand how close she'd come to being badly injured, perhaps even killed.

Sasha had stumbled forward, falling against her, so forcing her backwards on to the grass. She had felt a dull ache in her chest where Sasha had fallen on top of her, then a sharp pain in her left forearm, and so, assuming the bullet had come from a gun Sasha had been holding, she said the only thing she knew how to say: _I've been shot. Harry – I've been shot._ There seemed to be a lot of blood. It was everywhere - on her, on Sasha, and once he'd reached her and began to push Sasha away from her, on Harry. She saw the look on his face – fearful – and she heard his voice – gentle – so she assumed that she was about to die.

"Hold me, Harry," she said, "I think I've been shot."

"Don't you dare die on me, Ruth," she heard him say. "Not now." She'd smiled at that, because she knew exactly what he meant.

Ruth had closed her eyes, trusting Harry to deal with the situation. She felt him run his hands over her, lifting each of her arms, touching her body gently and respectfully. She thought of saying: _If I'd known you wanted to feel me up, Harry, I'd have managed to get myself shot long ago_, but wisely, had kept the words to herself. This was not the right time or place for comments such as that.

She felt Harry lift her so that she rested in a sitting position against him. By this time they'd been joined by Dimitri, Erin and Calum.

"I winged him in the thigh," she heard Dimitri say from somewhere behind her head. "Should have aimed a bit higher and got him in the nuts. Harry, tell me I can give the little shit a good kicking, yeah?"

"Perhaps not, Dimitri, but I know how you feel. Get that piece of glass from him, though. We don't want any more accidents."

"I've called the air ambulance for Sasha," Erin added. "Calum and I can stay with him until help arrives. What about Ruth?"

"She has a stab wound in her left forearm," she heard Harry say, his voice suddenly commanding, as it was when he was on the Grid. "It seems to be quite deep, so we need to staunch the bleeding. I'll need something to wrap around it until we can get her to hospital. She appears to have no other injuries."

"Harry," Erin said carefully, "Ruth's dress. The material is soft, and I think we can tear off the sleeve. Ruth," said Erin, looking into her eyes, "I hope you didn't pay an arm and a leg for this dress."

"No dress is worth her life." snapped Harry, and for the first time, Ruth heard an undercurrent of panic in his voice.

"She'll be fine, Harry," Erin said, aiming to calm him. "Dimitri can drive the two of you to hospital. That gash will need stitches. Dimitri?" Erin added. "Could you tear off the sleeve of Ruth's dress? We can use it to bandage the wound, until Calum – Calum, where are you? – until Calum gets the first aid kit from the car."

Ruth began to feel a little sick and woozy, as Harry held her close to his chest, while Dimitri tore both sleeves of her dress. The left one he tore from the wrist in order to expose her wound, and the right one he tore from the dress at the shoulder. Once he'd bandaged her wound with the right sleeve of her dress, Harry helped her to her feet. For a brief moment, he held her against him.

"Harry, your shirt is getting all bloodied."

"Bugger my shirt," he'd said quietly against her hair. "There are plenty of shirts where this one came from, but there's only one of you."

Ruth thought she felt him press his lips to her hair, but she couldn't be sure. Before they walked the short distance to Dimitri's car, Harry removed his jacket and put it around her shoulders.

"Now you'll get cold," Ruth said in protest.

"Ruth," he replied gently, "shut up." So she did. Harry slid his arm around her waist, and guided her firmly to the car.

She remembers little about the drive to hospital. All she could see through the car's window was the landscape and then the streetscape rushing by, and in front of her, the back of Dimitri's head, and part of his handsome profile, as he drove at speeds which were probably quite unnecessary. All she could feel was the dull ache in her arm, and Harry's hand grasping her own like she was his own personal lifeline. Several times during the trip, he asked about her wound, demanding to look at it to check that the blood had not soaked through the makeshift bandage. Eventually it did soak through, but she was too overwhelmed by the situation to mention it to him. She'd known for some time that Harry loved her, but he'd never before expressed his feelings for her quite so overtly and personally. As she saw it, being stabbed in the arm with a sliver of glass by a deranged and grief-stricken Russian FSB agent definitely had its advantages.

.

Dimitri had left Harry and she at the hospital, as he had to drive back to the Grid. The doctor assigned to look at Ruth was used to having to deal with the concerned families of her patients, and so she soon assured Harry that Ruth was not in any danger.

"But she's bleeding so much," he protested.

"That will happen with a wound this deep," Dr Chandler assured him. "I'll stitch her up, and a nurse will administer a tetanus shot, and then you should be able to take her home."

"You won't x-ray, or anything?" Harry asked.

"It's a flesh wound, Mr Pearce. All it will need are a good clean up, stitches, a firm bandage, a tetanus shot, and some pain killers. I'd advise you to stay with her at all times for the next day at least. Just in case."

"Just in case of what?" Harry said, his face displaying alarm.

"Mr Pearce, I can assure you your wife is in good hands here. We deal with stabbings and shootings and all manner of injuries every day of the week. She'll be right as rain in no time. In the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours it will be important to keep your eye on the wound for bleeding. Should that happen, you'll need to bring her back in. Any continuing redness or swelling should also be attended to, as it could indicate infection. I'll give you some antibiotic cream to put on the wound, so infection shouldn't be a problem."

Ruth had heard the words, `your wife', although Harry had appeared oblivious. Ruth had thought of protesting, by saying, `But I'm not his wife,' but then decided to leave it. For the time they were at the hospital, Ruth was quite happy to make-believe she and Harry were actually married. He had certainly been behaving much like a worried husband.

As her wound was stitched, Ruth looked away, and Harry sat beside her, holding her right hand in both of his, occasionally lifting his left hand to rub her back. She briefly wondered if he'd been this attentive with Jane, and if he had, what had been big enough and important enough to have come between them. Her wound was dried, and then it was dressed, and finally a bandage was wrapped firmly around it.

"Here are the pain killers," Dr Chandler said, handing her a small bottle of pills. "When the local anaesthetic wears off – in around four hours – you will no doubt feel a certain amount of discomfort and even pain. Start off with one tablet, and see how you feel. The dosage is no more than two every four hours. These tablets contain codeine, so take no more than twelve per day."

Ruth was sure she'd not remember any of what the doctor had said, and she was equally as sure that Harry would remember every word.

They waited in the lobby of the hospital for Harry's driver to pick them up. "You're coming to my place," he said, "so that I can keep an eye on you. I hope you like pasta," he added. "I'll cook us pasta for dinner."

Ruth was too tired, too overwhelmed by the events of the day to object to his suggestion. If Harry wanted to look after her, who was she to get in his way? "OK," she said flatly, "but I need clothes, Harry. We'll have to stop at my house for a change of clothes and some of my things."

"That's fine, so long as you just pick up what you need. Perhaps enough clothes for a couple of days. You can have a bath at my house."

For a change, Ruth was enjoying letting Harry make all the decisions. Normally she'd be embarrassed by the prospect that he was being inconvenienced by her needs, but somehow, things had changed between them, and she felt no such embarrassment. She was uncharacteristically enjoying being the object of Harry's exclusive attention, and once they'd settled into the back seat of the chauffeured car, she delighted in his nearness – his knee resting against her own, his hand clutching hers, and the frequent glances he gave her while he thought she wasn't looking.

One thing Ruth knew for sure, as they travelled in the comfort of the car, was that somehow, during the course of that afternoon, she and Harry had turned a corner, one from which there would be no going back.


	2. Chapter 2

_**I should have mentioned when I posted Chapter 1 …... this is a story of 3 chapters + epilogue.**_

_**And thank you all for your reviews...you are all most kind.**_

_**A couple of swears and some mild smut – still T rating, I think.**_

oOo

"No, Home Secretary, she's fine now, but she needs to be looked after for a couple of days at least...Yes, I know that …... Yes, I'll tell her. …... Thank you for that. We both appreciate your understanding."

Harry had insisted that after her bath and a change of clothes, Ruth put her feet up and rest on the sofa in the living room, a blanket covering her. She was sure such molly-coddling was unnecessary, but she began to recognise that Harry really _needed_ to look after her. She sensed that he was paying his dues, and only he knew what that meant. Ruth could only imagine that Harry felt responsible for her being stabbed, perhaps responsible for her being there in the first place.

"That sounded like a fine piece of arse-kissing," she said, as he stepped back into the room.

While Ruth had been in the bath in the guest bathroom, Harry had showered in his en suite bathroom, and he'd changed into casual clothing – black jeans, a grey open-necked shirt, and a blue jumper. _Delectable_, Ruth thought.

"Towers is giving you a few days off, and seeing that my continued employment is dependent upon how well the PM negotiates my case with the US President, then I'm off-duty too – indefinitely, as it turns out."

"You've been sacked? Harry, that's unfair!"

"Not yet," Harry replied. "In Towers' words, I'm to `give serious consideration to life after MI5'. Apparently, preventing the plane from crashing in a heavily populated area was not enough to get me my job back, although it has been enough to get the Americans off my case. Why am I not bothered by this? So long as I get the pension I'm due, I really don't care any more. I'm sick of playing politics."

"You have other options, now, Harry," Ruth reminded him quietly.

"So, you meant what you said back there at the bunker?" His eyes and his hands – fingers moving constantly - showed her how nervous he was.

"Yes, Harry, I've never been more serious about anything in my life, and just in case you're wondering, I'm not about to change my mind." She smiled across the room at him, and very slowly, his face reflected her smile.

.

Ruth managed to doze while Harry cooked dinner. She closed her eyes and faked sleep when he kept checking on her to see whether she was alright – _Does your arm hurt? Do you need another painkiller? What if I get another pillow from the guest bedroom?_ Whilst she was enjoying being the object of his attention, his concern was becoming tiring for her, as she began to recognise in herself the signs of needing to please him by accepting his attention. It would be so much easier for her were she simply to pretend to be asleep. Not long after she had closed her eyes in an attempt to feign sleep, she fell asleep. What she didn't know, was that while Harry cooked dinner, he checked on her at least every five minutes.

As they sat down to eat, Harry pointed out to her that he had cooked shell pasta, rather than spaghetti, so that she could eat with just one hand.

"Harry, I'm not an invalid," she replied, as kindly as she could.

He watched her for a moment before speaking. "So, what's that thing on your arm?"

"It's just my arm, Harry. I'm not sick. I wasn't near death."

Harry's reaction could not have been more surprising. He put down his fork, and rested his forehead on his hand, so that his eyes were hidden from her. Ruth thought of saying something, but then she noticed his shoulders shaking. Harry was crying, and his tears were rolling down his cheeks and on to the table.

"Harry," she said, "talk to me. I need to know what's going on, what's happening. Please tell me."

He wiped his hand over his eyes, and then he got up from the table, the chair legs scraping on the polished board floor, to get a tissue from the kitchen. She heard him blow his nose thoroughly, then wash his hands, before coming back to join her at the table. He still hadn't looked at her. Ruth waited until he was ready to speak. It took some minutes before he was fully composed.

"When you asked me …... when you came out of the bunker …... to leave the service to be with you …... I couldn't believe it. I thought I was dreaming. Here was something I'd wanted for such a long time, and you were presenting it to me." For the first time since he had broken down in tears, he looked across the table at her. When she saw the pain in his eyes she felt her heart go out to him. It took all her self-control to not go around the table and hold him. She knew he needed to offload whatever it was that was bothering him.

"It seemed like the perfect ending to a really shitty day, and then Sasha turned up. When you said that you'd been shot, and I saw all that …... all that blood …... I thought ... how fucking typical is that? Ruth and I at last have agreed to be together, to join our lives, and then this little _bastard_ comes along and kills her right in front of me. That's what I was thinking as I was running my hands over you, trying to determine the extent of your injuries. So don't, Ruth ….. don't …. _minimise_ what happened today. I thought I'd lost you again …... just like I did five years ago. I couldn't bear it were that to happen again. I can't ….. I _can't_ lose you again."

Harry's eyes were blazing with passion. She couldn't determine if she was seeing more unshed tears, or whether she was witnessing his ready anger, or if he was showing her a deeper kind of passion.

"I'm sorry, Harry. I had no idea."

"There's no need for you to apologise, Ruth. You had no way of knowing that this is how I feel. I'm used to …... masking my feelings, so I can't expect you to read what's hidden behind that mask." Harry took a deep breath, and returned to eating his pasta.

They ate in silence for some minutes, both recognising a need they each had to take their time in navigating the changing emotional landscape between them. This had always been the `task too hard' for them in the past. They had a need for facing it now.

"Would you like some wine?" he asked at last, after minutes of silence while they ate.

"Just a little, thanks, Harry. I'm not sure how wine will mix with the pain killers."

"I could say `live dangerously', but I'd rather you didn't," he said, his eyes flicking up briefly to meet hers as he poured a half glass for her, and a full glass for himself. "It's just an Italian rosé," he said, "nothing fancy."

"It's nice," she replied, taking a sip.

He finished his pasta, and pushed the bowl aside while he sipped his wine.

"I'm sorry about before," he said quietly. "I hadn't meant for all that to come out." He glanced across at her, mildly embarrassed by his earlier emotional vulnerability.

Ruth put her spoon back in the bowl, and pushed her own bowl away from her. Harry had given her enough pasta to feed a growing fifteen-year-old boy, and she could not get through it all. "I'm glad that it came out, you know," she said, looking across her half-glass of wine at him. "These are the kinds of things we've never been able to say to each other, Harry. It's important that we be honest, even if it's difficult to do."

Harry topped up his own glass, even though his glass was still half full. "There's something I should have said to you before you left me that time after the Cotterdam fiasco."

Ruth put down her glass, and looked across at him. His eyes were again filled with the passion she'd seen in them earlier.

"I have to …... Ruth ….. I _need_ to tell you that I love you. I can barely remember a time when I didn't love you." He took a deep breath before he continued, his declaration of love having almost winded him. "You wouldn't let me say it the last time I was ready to, so I'm saying it now. I'm not terribly good at this sort of thing. I seem to get it all wrong, or – as you've already told me – I get the timing wrong."

"Your timing tonight seems perfect, Harry. In fact, your timing couldn't be better."

"I'm much better at demonstrating my love for you. Words of love don't flow easily for me. I can look after you, and care for you, but when it comes to the words …..."

"You're doing very well tonight." Ruth smiled across at him, and he smiled back. They both seemed to relax a little, although neither seemed sure what to do next.

Eventually, Harry began to gather their dishes and glasses, and carried them to the kitchen. Knowing he'd not allow her to help in any way, Ruth rose from the table and stood close beside him, but not touching him, as he rinsed the dishes before he loaded them into the dishwasher. She could feel the tension between them, and understood that the next move had to come from her. Harry had poured his heart out to her in a very un-Harry-like way, so it would be up to her to take up where he had left off.

No sooner had he turned on the dishwasher than Ruth moved closer to him, carefully placing her right hand against the small of his back, and with her left hand she turned his face towards her. She reached up to him and gently put her lips on his. She expected him to be tentative, perhaps a little embarrassed, maybe even out of practice. What she hadn't expected was the well of passion which bubbled out of him when she put her lips against his own. Their last kiss had been only hours earlier, and Harry had instigated that. It had been a goodbye kiss – brief, passionless, and very public. For a moment, Harry seemed to have to think about what had just happened. Then he turned to face her, tucked both his arms around her, and pulled her hard against him, while his mouth opened under hers and all his pent up feeling from the day – perhaps from all the years of denying himself and her – poured out of him and into that kiss. The kiss became deeper, and more intimate, their lips locked, and their tongues enjoyed a journey of exploring the other. Their breathing became heavier, as hands began moving – over backs, down to buttocks, and one of Harry's hands slipped between them to lift up Ruth's t-shirt so that he could brush the skin of her bare stomach with his knuckles.

Ruth felt herself backed against the kitchen bench, his mouth devouring her neck, one hand on her buttocks pulling her body even harder against his own, the other hand under her shirt caressing her breast through her bra, when she decided that it was again her place to act. If she didn't, they'd surely be having sex either against this bench, or maybe on the kitchen floor, which hardly befitted the Section Head of Section D in MI5 and his former Senior Intelligence Analyst.

"Harry," she said against his ear, "Harry, we have to go somewhere ….. more …... suitable."

Harry must have heard her, because suddenly his mouth and his hands stopped moving, and he groaned his frustration against the skin of her neck, his breath hot and heavy.

"I don't want this to stop," Ruth continued, her lips still close to his ear, "and I'm assuming nor do you …."

"Well spotted, Ruth," he breathed.

"Can we …... can we go upstairs?" Ruth almost choked on the words. To be this blunt, this forthright with Harry, was difficult for her. She'd been this open with other men in her past, but this was Harry ….. and Harry mattered. She'd just said to him the equivalent of: _Harry, I want you to fuck me_. She hoped that he hadn't been put off by her forwardness.

His breathing settled, and he pulled away from her. His eyes were lazy and full of love and lust, his arousal evident in his jeans. With a slight smile on his lips, he leaned into her and kissed her chastely before he took her hand and led her out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his bedroom.

.

Despite having expressed his hunger for her only minutes earlier, when they reached the bedroom, Harry took his time, perhaps recognising that she was here willingly, and was planning to stay – both in this room, and in his life. He turned on one of the lamps beside the bed, the glow from which showed Ruth that his bedroom was uncluttered and functional, as she'd expected it to be, a large and comfortable bed being the main feature in the room. Earlier, after they'd picked up some of her things from her house, he had led her to the spare bedroom and shown her where she could sleep, and the wardrobe where she could hang her clothes. At the time she'd been a little disappointed, having hoped that his obvious demonstrations of his love for her throughout the afternoon had meant that she'd be welcome in his own bed that night. So here she was, in Harry's bedroom, gazing at Harry's bed with Harry standing beside it, his eyes blazing with love and anticipation. He reached out his hand to her, and she met him beside the bed, allowing him to draw her close to where he stood.

They stood beside the bed facing one another. Harry undressed her slowly, taking care to not touch her left forearm, until apart from her knickers, she was naked. She then stood before him, as if on display, his eyes taking in every detail. His hands gently followed where his eyes led him. Ruth felt a slight shiver pass through her body, not from the cold, but from the glance of Harry's fingertips over her skin, and her pent-up excitement over what was about to happen.

"We don't have to do this if you don't want to," he said quietly, his eyes watching her closely.

"Harry, I've wanted this for so long, I'm not about to back out now."

"Me too," he said softly, a smile on his lips.

He suddenly lifted his jumper over his head and threw it on the floor, and was about to undo the buttons of his shirt when Ruth grasped his fingers and pulled them away. "Let me," she said. "You can't possibly know for how long I've ached to do this."

He let his hands fall to his side, while Ruth opened each of his shirt buttons, and then pulled his shirt off his shoulders. She could feel his eyes on her as she ran her hands up his arms to his neck, down to his shoulders, and then over his chest, her fingers feeling every imperfection. Even his imperfections – his scars, the excess flesh on his body – were beautiful in her eyes. Next she attended to his belt and the buttons and zip on his jeans, and pushed them down, very aware that he was closely watching her every move. He pulled off his shoes and socks, and then kicked his jeans under the bed. They each stood beside the bed, dressed only in their underpants. Ruth slid both hands along Harry's outer thighs, and then up under his underwear to grasp his buttocks, fulfilling a need she had to touch his skin. Harry's hands rested benignly on her hips, only his eyes – dilated and hungry – and his erection – almost bursting from his underwear – giving away the state of his arousal.

Ruth reached over and lifted one side of the duvet. "Shall we?" she said, as she crawled under the duvet ahead of him.

Under the duvet, their hands explored the skin of the other, and then they continued their exploration with lips and tongues. During this exploration their underwear was discarded, although afterwards Ruth had no memory of when and how that had happened. She felt that they were performing a dance under the duvet, their hands, fingers, tongues and lips being directed by some hidden choreographer. It was as though they were rediscovering one another after years, even decades apart. They _knew_ one another so well, but they were having to reacquaint themselves with the details of one another's bodies.

Very gradually, Ruth let go of the lead, and allowed Harry to take over. His mouth and fingers displaying a high degree of skill, as he brought her to climax twice before he was ready to reach his own fulfilment. He entered her carefully and slowly, instructing her to keep her left arm out of the way and above her head. Ruth knew she could rely on him to love her fully and with respect for her needs. By the time he reached his own orgasm, Ruth had climaxed a third time. They collapsed together on the bed, exhausted, happy, and oblivious to the world outside the bedroom.

As they prepared to sleep, saying their goodnight's and I-love-you's, Harry pulling the duvet up to cover them both, there was no doubt or fear left for either of them - only love, contentment and awe.


	3. Chapter 3

_Next morning:_

Ruth is aware that her left arm is throbbing, and that she should probably take more pain killers. The time on the bedside clock reads 5:34 am, and the room is quite dark, as Harry sleeps on. She quietly slips out of bed, being careful to not disturb her lover, and tiptoes across the floor to where there are two bathrobes hanging on a hook behind the door. She chooses the burgundy one with silver piping, slips it on, being careful to not trip on the hem which drags along the floor as she pads down the hallway, the stairs, and to the kitchen. The house is quite warm, telling her that a man on Harry's income can afford to keep his house heated at all hours. At this hour of the morning her own house would be as cold as the grave.

She heats the kettle and prepares to make herself a pot of tea. Her bottle of pain killers is on the kitchen counter beside the kettle, so she shakes out two, and washes them down with a mouthful of water from the tap over the sink. Forty five minutes pass as she sips her tea, alone in the kitchen and the silence, while Harry sleeps upstairs. She remembers the hour before they fell asleep, and she can't help but smile at the memory.

She sits at the kitchen table with her pot of tea while the pain killers take effect, the dull throbbing in her arm gradually diminishing to a tingling, and eventually an anaesthetised numbness. Something which had risen into her conscious mind as she awoke has now taken up residence as a gnawing worry. She thinks it through – from one end to the other, and then all the possibilities in between. This analysis of the situation doesn't help. It's still there, as large and unbending as it ever was. This will affect Harry as much as it affects her, and so she needs his input on the matter. Feeling calmer for having admitted her concerns to herself, and with an immediate strategy in mind – to discuss her concerns with Harry - she adjourns to the sofa in the living room, and lays down, her head on a pile of cushions, her body stretched out and covered by the blanket. She closes her eyes and dozes.

.

She is woken by warm lips softly caressing her own. She opens her eyes to see Harry's face close to her own, and she kisses him back. She reaches out to touch his face, still not quite believing that they are together in this way. He is wearing the royal blue bathrobe, bare legs and bare feet indicating that, like her, he is naked beneath the bathrobe. Her imagination takes her places which leave her blushing.

"I woke up in an empty bed," he complained. "What are you doing out here on your own?"

"I had to take some more tablets for the pain, and I didn't want to wake you."

A frown forms between his eyes. "Your arm? Are you alright?"

"I believe so ….. now you're here." Ruth caresses his lips with her finger. "You looked so ….. peaceful while you were sleeping. I couldn't bear to wake you."

He smiles at her. Harry has such a beautiful smile, something rarely seen when he's on the Grid. "I've just had the best sleep ever," he says, lifting one eyebrow. "I have discovered the best cure for insomnia."

"I think you'll find you're not the first person to have discovered that," she replies.

He leans over her again and begins kissing her slowly and gently, but with purpose. Despite enjoying his kisses immensely, Ruth gently pushes him away, both hands against his chest. "There's something we need to talk about," she says. "Sit down here." She turns on her side on the sofa to make room for him, and pats the space beside her. He sits, gazing at her longingly.

"Harry," she begins, "last night we had …... unprotected sex ….."

"I've had all the tests, Ruth. I'm clean."

"I don't mean that. What I mean is we didn't use …... contraception."

"Oh, that. I wasn't even thinking of it."

"Me neither, and I'm right in mid cycle. It's possible that I …..."

"You could get pregnant?"

"It's possible that I could already _be_ pregnant."

Ruth closely watches his face. He looks away from her for what seems like a very long time, during which she imagines all the very worst probable reactions from him. When he again turns towards her, he is smiling a gentle smile, one which gently lifts the corners of his mouth.

"The best things sometimes happen without any forward planning," was all he said before he again leans in to kiss her.

"But Harry," she said against his mouth, "do you realise what this means?"

"I do know how it all works, Ruth," he says, lifting his head to look at her, his eyes lazy with love for her. "My sperm meets your egg, and voila – nine months later we have a little human being with your eyes and my hair."

"Harry, are you sure about this? I'm not trying to entrap you with a child."

"Maybe it's me who's doing the trapping, Ruth. Perhaps I engineered the whole thing."

"To do that you'd have had to have intimate knowledge of my menstrual cycle, and as good a spy as you are, Harry, even that would have been beyond your considerable sleuthing skills."

Harry looks serious for a moment. "You know how I feel about this. What about you? If this happens, you'll be the one carrying it to term, and then pushing a fully formed child out of your body."

She reaches out to brush her fingers through his hair, imagining a child of theirs with this same hair. His question requires of her a considered answer, after all, they are contemplating bringing another human being into a world which they both know is not always a gentle and safe place. "I'd never considered having children until I helped to care for Nico. It created a kind of yearning in me. I believe that I will welcome being a mother, if that's to be, and I'd want no other man than you to be my child's father. But I'll only go through with this if you're with me, Harry. I have no intention of being a single mother."

"And I have no intention of leaving you, Ruth. It took us long enough to get here, and I can't bear the thought of going back to the way things used to be between us. I couldn't bear it. I'm not letting you slip away from me again." He thinks for a while, looking down at his fingers as he does so. "Bringing up children is difficult, Ruth. Are you prepared for that? Money won't be a problem for us, but we can't pre-program our children. We have to deal with what we are given, and that can be painful."

She watches him closely, conscious that he is talking about his own children, and more specifically, his son, from whom he has been estranged for some time. Even though he never talks about it, she knows that the estrangement from Graham is a painful subject for him.

"It won't be nearly so difficult if we do it together, Harry. I feel as though I can do anything at all as long as you're with me." They share a smile of knowing. "And if you're not working, then you can be as hands-on as you like."

"What about you, Ruth, how long do you intend working for Towers?"

"Yesterday when I asked you to leave the service and live with me, I was ready to leave then and there. If and when I do become pregnant, I'll retire well before the baby's born. I'd like us to bring up any child of ours together. I don't wish for anyone other than you and me to bring up our child."

"You've given this some thought, then."

"Just a little." Ruth smiles, a little embarrassed that he knows how long it is that she's been thinking about this very possibility.

Harry leans down and kisses her. Ruth is beginning to recognise Harry's different kisses. There is his passionate, intensely sexual kisses, his chaste kisses, his gentle, soft baby's breath kisses, and then there is his kiss of longing – which can easily develop into a passionate kiss. This kiss is a kiss of longing, and Ruth can detect a question in the kiss. It is as though in his kiss he is saying: _Pleeeeease_...

"Harry," she manages to say at last, "do you want to make love again?" Not only is Ruth finding her voice, but she's also expressing herself more honestly than at any other time in her life.

He lifts his head just enough that he can look her in the eye. "Am I that transparent?"

She smiles at him and nods. "I'm assuming that you would like a round of baby-making, just in case last night didn't work for us."

They make love on the sofa, not the most comfortable of places, but that is where they are when they begin, so they stay there and make the best of it. Harry lies on his back and Ruth straddles him, making it easier for her to protect her left arm by resting it along the back of the sofa. Their love-making is loud, and neither hold back as they climax. Ruth collapses on top of him, and rests her head next to his, his strong arms pulling the blanket over them before encircling her and drawing her close to his chest.

"I hope this house has thick walls," she whispers into his neck.

He chuckles softly against her hair. "Purpose built for loud orgasms," he replies, nuzzling his face against her. "The neighbours wouldn't have heard a thing."

"You should be lying on your back, sweetheart," he says after some time.

"Why?"

"So my swimmers travel upstream instead of down."

Ruth lifts her head to look at him, in an attempt to determine whether he's serious, or simply teasing her.

"Harry, tell me this whole baby-making project isn't just a masculine ego trip for you."

"Ruth – how could you! You expressed a wish to become a mother, so I'm just doing my bit to help."

"But we don't have to do it straight away. There will be other months. There's no rush."

He smiles at her, the slow, lazy, smile of a man who has just been well-loved. "Then I'll look forward to more of the same," he says.

Suddenly, his mobile phone rings. Harry extricates himself from beneath Ruth, rolls off the sofa, and grabs his bathrobe from the floor beside the sofa, searching for the pocket which holds his phone. "Pearce," he says, and then listens. Still naked, he walks into the hallway to have his conversation.

By the time he returns, Ruth has wrapped herself in the burgundy bathrobe, and is in the kitchen in search of more tea, and perhaps some bread with which to make toast. She fills the kettle, turns it on to boil, and puts bread slices in the toaster. By the time Harry finds her in the kitchen he too has donned his robe, and his phone is back in his bathrobe pocket.

"I thought I'd turned it off last night," he grumbles. "That was Dimitri," he says, grabbing a slice of toast and preparing to butter it. "Sasha Gavrik is in St Thomas's Hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to his right thigh. He was operated on yesterday. When he's well enough to fly, he'll be put on the first plane back to Moscow. Ilya Gavrik has already flown out with his wife's body. For Sasha it will be a one-way trip. If he's ever seen in the UK again, he'll be arrested for attempted murder."

"Why isn't he being charged now?" Ruth asks. "After all, he did try to kill you."

"I think any legal representation he has will plead temporary insanity. He witnessed his father killing his mother, and that would be grounds for him getting off. Besides, if he's deported, then he's no longer our problem."

"Out of sight, out of mind."

"Something like that," Harry muses, munching on his toast.

"Harry," Ruth begins, not sure if it is wise of her to re-open the subject, "why did you ever believe that Sasha was your son?"

"Because Elena led me to believing he was, and I suppose there was a part of me that wanted to believe her. Why do you ask?"

"Because he looks nothing like you. He's the image of Ilya."

"Sometimes I'm an idiot," Harry grumbles.

"No, Harry. You're a romantic." She looks across at him and smiles, letting him know that she is no longer haunted by images of him with Elena.

They eat in silence for a time, each lost in their private thoughts, before Harry again speaks.

"While you've been thinking about babies," he begins, "I've been having my own musings."

"Go on."

"How would you feel about moving in here …... with me?" Harry's eyes are glowing with love, and something else which Ruth thinks may be nervousness. "We'll be living together if you get your cottage in Suffolk, so why not live together when we're in London?"

"I thought we already were," Ruth replies.

"Just like that? That's your answer?"

"What other answer is there, Harry? If we're to have a life together, and bring up a child together – should that happen for us – then we can't do it from separate houses. Not properly, anyway. We've had enough time apart. I'm ready now to be with you – in every way. I want to sleep with you in your bed every night, and I want to wake up next to you each morning. I want to be able to make love with you without getting on a bus to get here."

Harry is smiling at her with the broadest of smiles. "So much has changed for us in the last 24 hours."

"All it takes is 24 hours," she replies.

"_And_ a stabbing and a shooting."

"That too," Ruth says.

.

_22 days later:_

Ruth is clock-watching, something she only ever does when she is becoming bored or frustrated with her job. She enjoys working at the Home Office, chiefly because she feels valued, but there are days when her endless trawling through intel is tedious and repetitious. The money makes the job worth it, and Towers gives her plenty of freedom to move around between the different sections, so she can't complain. Towers also knows that she's living with Harry. What Towers doesn't know is that three days ago she received a phone call to say that her offer on the cottage in Suffolk had been accepted, and when the finance goes through, she will be taking possession of it in less than twelve weeks. What Towers also doesn't know is that Ruth is six days late, and she suspects she _may_ be pregnant. She and Harry have been talking long into the night about what they imagine a child of theirs will be like, along with possible names, what schools it should attend, and other such dreams that prospective parents have for their children. They talk a lot of silly talk, and they laugh often, and this talk almost always leads to love-making. Tonight is Friday night, and Harry is meeting her and they are going out to dinner. Even though she sees him every day, shares his bed every night, and it is only nine hours since she last saw him, she can't wait for him to walk through her office door. She feels like a teenager on her first date.

At 5.18 her door opens, and Harry walks through. She has already sent home Margot, her PA, so her outer office is unattended. Ruth gets up from her chair and walks around her desk to greet him. They kiss like lovers who only see one another infrequently. He holds her close to him, and they each lose themselves in the kiss. Although they first met almost nine years ago, they have only been together as lovers for 23 days, and everything between them is still new and remarkable.

"Before we leave," Harry says, lifting his head from her, "I have something for you." He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a small paper bag.

"What could I possibly need from Boots?" Ruth asks, seeing the name on the bag.

"Open it," he says, his eyes shining.

Ruth opens the end of the bag and when she sees what is inside, she looks up at him. "Harry, that's really sweet, but I thought we agreed to wait another few days."

"We did. I just bought it so we can be prepared."

Leaving the pregnancy test in the Boots bag, Ruth slips it into her handbag. She then reaches up to him and kisses him soundly. "You are an rare man, Harry Pearce. I don't know what I've been doing these last eight years, dithering around, trying to decide what to do about you. I must have been mad"

They leave Ruth's office and walk through the corridors of Whitehall hand-in-hand.

"Where are we eating?" Ruth asks him.

"How about French provincial? There's this new place down by the river. I thought we might go to the George for a drink first. Some of the old crowd might be there." Harry reaches down to kiss her, and she pulls away from him.

"Harry! The CCTV cameras."

"Bugger the cameras," he replies, grabbing her around the waist and kissing her thoroughly.

In the camera suite in the basement, Trevor Lloyd – a veteran of over twenty years in the security business - puts down his take-away, and looks hard at the feed from Camera 34, from the corridor outside the Home Secretary's office.

"Bloody Harry Pearce again," he says to himself. "That's the third Friday night in a row. He just won't leave that poor woman alone."

**oOo**

_**Is she or isn't she? **_

_**I had originally thought the story should end there, but then I thought that might be a tad cruel, so I've written an epilogue. That will be up soon.**_


	4. Epilogue

_**A/N****: Fluffy ending alert! (Just warning you.)**_

**oOo**

_12 months later – Suffolk:_

Harry stands on the edge of the dune, gazing out at the ocean – turbulent and angry and gun-metal grey – trying to determine the line of demarcation between the grey sky and grey sea. He never grows tired of watching the sea - churning, turning, slapping, crashing – the sea that never sleeps. He can imagine the stories the sea could tell, the same body of water ebbing and flowing against the same land-mass throughout the centuries. It is a fifteen minute walk from the cottage to the beach, and he does this most mornings, weather permitting. As has become his habit, he awoke early, arms and legs wrapped around his wife, her body warm and inviting, her curves calling to him. He yearns for her as much now as he always did, his own body still so readily aroused by her naked skin against his own. As they do most mornings, they started the day by making love. Love in the evenings is rare these days, since they are both so tired that they crawl into bed to sleep, but in the mornings, both they and the day are fresh and new, and love-making comes most easily and naturally to them just before dawn. They often awaken together, their bodies warm with sleep, their skin touching, he already aroused, she receptive to him, and eager for loving. Her body is now a little thicker in places, and he welcomes these changes in her. His hands and eyes devour the fullness of her waist and hips, and her full breasts are to him an object of sheer beauty and perfection. He never tires of her, and he is grateful that she has shown no signs of tiring of him. After a long post-coital cuddle, he had left the bed, hearing her murmur, "That was wonderful, Harry," before she again burrowed under the duvet, and within seconds fell asleep, her breathing slow and steady. He'd left her sleeping, having been well-loved.

He is dressed for the outdoors in lace-up walking boots, corduroy trousers, a heavy woollen jumper over two long-sleeved t-shirts, over which he wears a lambswool-lined hooded coat, a scarf, and thick gloves. Even so, he has to keep up the pace in order to keep warm. It is November, and a year almost to the day since Ruth had been accidentally stabbed by Sasha Gavrik. She still bears an angry scar along her left forearm. He shudders to think of what might have happened had Dimitri not appeared when he did. He ponders the significance of serendipitous events in his life. There have been moments – like points plotted on a graph – when the direction of his life has turned in an instant. The day he chose Ruth from a group of eager applicants to become the intelligence analyst at Section D was one such moment. It would be indiscriminate of him to rationalise that he chose Ruth because she was the best person for the job. He knows that there was a part of him that knew he needed this particular woman in his life – to challenge him, to confound him, but ultimately to love him, and for him to love her. That day outside the bunker was another such moment. He is here now, on this Suffolk coast, because of the events which took place during the 24 hour period after Dimitri shot Sasha Gavrik in the thigh. He can no longer feel anger towards Sasha, any more than he can feel anger towards the sun for setting each night. He could not have imagined on that day how rich and full his life was about to become, and how many of his unspoken dreams were about to be realised.

He is waiting for age to slow him, to curb his sexual appetite, his passion for his wife, but the opposite seems to have happened. His daily routine is one which has trimmed his body and lifted his level of fitness and his energy. His doctor has shown approval now that his blood pressure has normalised, and he has lost 15 pounds in weight. The puffiness in his face has gone, adding definition to his facial bone structure. He again has a distinct jawline, something his wife enjoys drawing attention to as she runs her finger along it just prior to kissing him.

There have been times during the past year when Ruth has has found him staring out the window, or gazing across the meadows to the sea. She has asked what is wrong, and he has replied, "Just thinking," and so, recognising his occasional need for private thoughts, she has let it drop. For a while there, soon after they moved here, he'd imagine a major terrorist threat somehow impinging on his perfect life, dragging him back into the whole messy, insane business, threatening the life they have built for themselves. He can't remember when last he'd felt this way. They are settled, and he now knows that they are safe.

Back inside the cottage, he removes his boots, gloves, coat and scarf. Scarlet runs to greet him, jumping up for him to pat her. At twelve years of age, Scarlet has become slow, and unable to keep up with Harry on his morning walks, so while he walks, she remains curled up on the hearth in the living room. Harry scratches her behind the ears, and when she rolls over, he tickles her tummy.

There is a routine to his mornings, now that notification of threats to national security are no longer part of his remit. Next, he boils the kettle and makes tea for he and Ruth. He carries the steaming mugs upstairs to their bedroom, where as she does every other morning, Ruth stirs at the sound of his footfall on the landing. While he's been out walking, the sun winked above the horizon, and its rays cast a dull glow against the curtains.

"Have you heard from Grace?" she asks, propping herself against two pillows.

"Not yet. Best we make the most of it."

"Harry, you're not thinking about sex again, surely."

He grins, sipping his tea. He is sitting on the bed beside her. "No I wasn't, but now you've mentioned it …..."

"Harry Pearce, you're like a twenty-year-old!"

"I hope that I'm better at it than a twenty-year-old, Ruth."

"I imagine that you're better at it than anyone alive," she says, almost to herself, but lifts her eyebrows as she smiles at him. They are each acknowledging the passion they still share, and how important this is to them both.

They sip their tea in silence, thoughts of their year together vibrating in the air between them. They exchange a glance, the kind of private look which lovers reserve for each other. Their lives have been enriched, not only by their being together, but by what they have created together. Ruth hears Grace before Harry does, her ears having been attuned to their daughter's cry from the moment she was born. She looks at Harry.

"Was that what I thought it was?" he asks.

Ruth nods. "Don't forget to change her first," she adds unnecessarily. Harry knows the routine, and performs it like clockwork. This is all so new for him, being so hands-on with his own child.

He puts down his tea on the bedside table and walks to the next room, the smaller of the two bedrooms, the one Ruth had told him she had imagined could be his office. Neither of them had given a serious thought to this becoming their daughter's room. Grace is awake, trying to cry, but smiles her gummy smile when she sees Harry's face beside her cot. She has worked her arms free from the covers, and they flail around her head, while under her blankets she kicks with gusto. He pulls back the blankets, and lifts her up and kisses her, then holds her close and rocks her, singing _"Bye Baby Bunting"_ to her, just a little off-key.

_Bye Baby Bunting,_

_Daddy's gone a-hunting,_

_To catch a little rabbit skin_

_To wrap my baby bunting in._

Her eyes are large like her mother's, and are just beginning to change colour – to hazel, like his own – and although she hasn't yet enough hair to determine hair colour, when she was first born, her hair was dark like Ruth's. Next to Ruth, she is his favourite female in all the world. Catherine is a little wary of her tiny half-sister, not yet sure what her role with her is to be. Harry is leaving it up to Catherine, now 32, to work that out on her own. He places Grace gently on the change-table and removes her nappy.

"Peww!" he says to her, wrinkling his nose. "That's an extra-stinky one, sweetheart. What's Mummy been eating?"

He cleans her up with wet wipes, and after putting her in a clean nappy, takes her in to Ruth. In their bedroom, Ruth takes Grace from him, and puts her straight to her breast. Harry kisses each of his girls on their cheeks, then lingers for a moment, watching his wife feeding their daughter, Grace hungrily gulping the milk which so freely flows. This is their small miracle, which they had unwittingly created together in the aftermath of Ruth's stabbing. With a final glance at the tableau on the bed, he returns to Grace's room to clean up after her nappy change, after which he will go downstairs to make breakfast for he and Ruth. Ruth will bring Grace downstairs after her feed, lay her on a rug in front of the fire, and then they will breakfast together at the dining table, glancing often at each other, and at their daughter. That is their routine. That is how they begin their day as a family – safe, predictable, and love-filled – and that is how Harry likes it. At 59 years of age, he can at last say that he has found true meaning in his life. It is no longer his responsibility to keep the nation safe. So long as his small family is safe, he is a happy man.

**oOo**

_**Thank you to all who have followed this fic and especially to those who have left reviews.**_

_**Next fic – `While She Was Gone' – coming up in the next couple of weeks... just taking advantage of the muse while it's there.**_


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